I am so ready to kick 2015 to the curb. Usually, I love doing those "year in review" memes (my favorite is still the one I filled out in 2002. The question was "Who do you want to get to know better in the New Year?" My answer was Kent. That gives me all the feels). Not doing it this year. I can see a straight downward path from April 15 (when Kent found out he needed cataract surgery--which actually turned out to be a boon, if a financial drain--and I got hit by a truck in a crosswalk) to December 22 (when Grandpa died). In between, Granma died, there were other losses for me and friends and loved ones and...yeah. Just not doing it this year. But I do love reading the ones everyone else has put up.

I ended up doing my grocery run with Santa Pete yesterday. While NC is nowhere near as bad as other places are having it, rainwise (although my heart is breaking for a local place that got flooded out. It isn't the first time, and it is mostly lower income housing), I was a total wimp and called upon Pete so I could avoid schlepping stuff on the bus.

I don't know why I get so wound up about asking him for a ride. The man would subsist entirely on meals out and meals here if I didn't go with him to buy groceries. He hates it because a) he's forgetful and b) he has to use one of the motorized carts, so he has to ask for/find someone to help for stuff on the upper shelves. He'll cook for himself if he has actual food in the house.

Okay, or he'll bring it over here for one of us to cook. Or just eat pickled herring right out of the jar while watching Animaniacs.

I judge no one's eating choices. I had peanut butter and celery sticks for breakfast. I get grumpy when people think that's "diet" food. That was 70s holiday food when I was growing up! I just regret I didn't have raisins handy.

I eat stuff because I like it.

And here the rant comes:TW: weight loss, dieting, ED issues

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I swear, if I see one more "how to lose weight in the new year" alleged news story, commercial, article, etc, I'm going to punch something.

The focus on weight loss this time of year makes me queasy, because it reminds me of my mother's (and Granma's, and Grandma K's) toxic approach to food every January. We were a foodie family before the term foodie was even around, but every January...hello! Scales to weigh the food. Scales to weigh you. Constant chatter about what's "bad" for you food-wise. Guilt, guilt, guilt about every bite you put in your mouth.

Grandpa was the only one exempt from this (oh, and someday I am going to write an article unpacking the inherent sexism I grew up with, no matter how much I love Grandpa). He was 6'3" and 300-something pounds of solid muscle back in the day, a hardworking body and fender man, and the sole provider a lot of times for a household of six women.

We loved making food for him. That's how I learned how to cook.

I wonder how guilty he felt, while we were eating our salads weighed out on tiny scales and he was eating food fit for a king.

Don't even get me started that we were broke most of the time. Jeebus, I am thinking WAY too much about this.

Of course, he was the first to sneak those disgusting circus peanut things (Steph's favorite) and Doritos (*ahem*) to us. <3

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In other news, I finished Kent's "assghan." When he had the old, scary computer chair (the thing was so old and well used that 2 of the wheels were actually flat on one side, and the seat bled orange-y stuffing. Ick), he stole a lapghan I made for myself. Then Santa Pete and I got him a new chair, and the lapghan was retired as a blanket for a neighbor's new puppy.

Then I bought some yarn on impulse (this is why you don't allow me in a Big Box Store with the household debit card). I started working with it and wondered if I was having LSD flashbacks from acid I've never dropped when I decided I must have 2 skeins of Red Heart's "blacklight" colorway.

Kent fell in love with it (this from a man who still had blacklight posters in his room when we met. Quelle suprise). And he asked for an "assghan" for his new chair.

Love peanut butter. Raw celery? NO THANKS! When I was little, my parents once did the peanut butter celery for Xmas. I licked the peanut butter out of the stalks...maybe that's why they never made those things again XD

Ugh, I am in completely agreement with you about the dieting crap. This is my least favorite time of year because it's cold and dreary and because I work in an office that is almost all female everyone is complaining about food. Luckily, usually, by February it will have burnt off. (And I'm going on vacation over MLK weekend to Paris and am making sure to eat as much cream and cheese as possible then.)